massif

Vinson Massif

Mountain, Sentinel Range, central Ellsworth Mountains, western Antarctica. Rising 16,066 ft (4,897 m), the Vinson Massif is the highest mountain on the continent. It was discovered in 1935 by U.S. explorer Lincoln Ellsworth.

Plateau region, south-central France. It is bordered by the lowlands of Aquitaine, the Loire basin, the Rhône-Saône valley, and the Mediterranean coastlands of Languedoc. Comprising about one-sixth of France, it occupies an area of 35,006 sq mi (90,665 sq km). It consists mainly of plateaus with elevations of 2,000 to 3,000 ft (600 to 900 m). Its highest peak is Puy de Sancy, which reaches 6,184 ft (1,885 m). It is the source of many rivers, including the Loire, Allier, Cher, and Creuse.

In geology, a massif is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole. The term is also used to refer to a group of mountains formed by such a structure. The massif is a smaller structural unit of the crust than a tectonic plate.

The word is taken from French (in which the word also means "massive"), where it is used to refer to a large mountain mass or compact group of connected mountains forming an independent portion of a range. One of the most notable European examples of a massif is the Massif Central of the Auvergne region of France.